


Is a Beetle, Was a Beetle

by Capriciously_Terminal



Category: Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Genre: Eventually others but rn it's just us and the bug man, Gen, Mere Mention of Hanzo and Sariatu, Nightmares, Not super violent but like there's swords and fights and kind of torture?, Super Spoilers like all of the Beetle Spoilers, Those first couple years as a bug musta been real rough there buddy, When you make the comedic relief characters real sad, in the whole 'getting turned into a bug' kind of way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8658196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capriciously_Terminal/pseuds/Capriciously_Terminal
Summary: He recalls the sweaty hilt of a new sword in his hand as he clenches his segmented claws around the ancient one in the snow. He has a flash of a young man doing drills, practicing forms and training until the sword is one with his hand, but can that be him? There are only two hands, no bulbous shell on his back, and there are distinct eyelids. He is a beetle, but he remembers a man.
Wherein the first years of being an amnesiac samurai bug are described, as are some aforementioned flashes.





	

Beetle’s memories come back in fragments, like flakes that come loose from the bark of a dead log. And sometimes he itches with the very feel of them. He doesn’t shed his shell like his smaller namesakes, but he seems to know that the itch his mind feels as he tries to remember is the same kind of itch. It's an itch of nature, an itch as old and aching as time itself and he just can’t scratch at it. It’s as though the irritation lives in the small of his back where even his four segmented arms cannot reach. He can strain and try but in the end all he’s left with is a sense of defeat and a very itchy back. The itch burns when he finds things buried in the snow (he knows it’s called snow somehow, the name coming as easily as breathing). But with the burning comes a reward. With each thing he finds, he gets a flash of something that once was.

He finds the hilt of what he wants to call a sword embedded in the rocky snow-covered ground, and he remembers the oppressive heat of summer sun on his back. This is nothing like the cold he lives in now, though he doesn’t have much in the way of sensing temperature, and it is almost as though remembering warms him. He recalls the sweaty hilt of a new sword in his hand as he clenches his segmented claws around the ancient one in the snow. He has a flash of a young man doing drills, practicing forms and training until the sword is one with his hand, but can that be him? There are only two hands, no bulbous shell on his back, and there are distinct eyelids. He _is_ a beetle, but he remembers a man.

As quickly as it comes it leaks away like water through cracked stone. He is left only with the feeling of a missing sun on his back and a different sword in his grasp. He decides to keep it, holding it as he finds his way through the eye of a stone man. He finds home, and claims it with the sword placed upon what he calls a stone altar. He is worshiping the thought of memories, and it is the thought of _more_ of them that sends him out to search, though he never attempts it at night. He dares not face the moon, but he has a quest now. And it feels almost familiar like the ghost of a hand along his back.

He trips over the helmet buried in the snow, and finds it faded and battle-worn. There is a new dent in it from where his foot struck the cold metal. He initially thinks it’s a bucket. But as he lifts it to the light, he recalls the feeling of metal on his forehead. Not the feeling of his shell, still protective but so organic. The helmet is not living, it was made for him but not by nature. It was made by human hands. It gets warmed by the sun to the point of burning, gathers scratches and dents from the glory of battle. It saves his life. It is a helmet, his helmet, and it comes with a feeling of pride as it jostles around on his hair and scalp. It comes with a word. Samurai. Not only was he a man, he was a samurai. He does not fully understand what this word means, but it leaves him with a feeling of honor as it dissipates.

It’s hard to find a bow still intact. Many litter the ground in pieces with broken strings or shattered limbs. Those bring back memories like flies, too small to leave an impression, and he swats them away on instinct before he can truly remember all of the bows he broke and the frustration they brought. But when he finds one whole, with a grip and a string still taut, he plucks at it expecting music. It lets loose one note, a satisfying twang that shatters the hollow moan of the frosty wind. He then realizes that he’s holding it wrong, as he’s shifted to dangling it from a claw by the string. As he shifts it to a proper form, he’s hit by the sight of a man standing the same way he is now. His posture erect, with strength in his arms and legs and a look of seriousness in his eyes. It’s like looking at a phantom, and for the briefest of moments he and the phantom are one and the same. But then he loses his train of thought, and he’s left holding the bow with no idea of what to do next.

It all comes to a head as he finds the flag. It stands as a bright red beacon against the snow, hanging haggardly onto a pole atop a hill in the distance. He has been building a shrine to the samurai he once was, deep down in the earth inside of a stone warrior. It’s warm, and full of the things he has picked up around the snowy landscape, and he knows that the sun will soon set and snow storms will not be far behind. But he follows the flag, climbing the hill determined and speaking to himself. He goes over all he’s found. Swords and breastplates, helmets and bows and arrows. But something is missing. He knows it. As he crests the hill, he feels the greatest itch of all. He approaches the flag and it sadly waves at him in the low breeze. He takes the edge in his claws, careful not to tear into the fabric. He cannot sense texture well, but it looks coarse. This is a flag that has seen war. That flickers in his mind: war.

There was a great war, a great army, _his_ great army here at the edge of the snow. They had been attacked, an initial assault on a home that was destroyed by a smaller force. A warning of more to come. They had sailed for a day, across The Long Lake to the edge of The Far Lands until sundown. There was final stand in the darkness. His brothers in arms, other samurai all fighting for something, the snow biting their eyes and stinging their noses red. Red. The flag is red, red as blood. Again that flickers: blood. Blood staining the snow. An army is slaughtered by something so great and powerful that it shakes the heavens and he cannot bear to think of it. His brothers die around him by the hundreds, but not him, no. He survives until the bitter end, fighting for something so important he must remember it. And yet it stays just out of reach. He remembers the ache of a sword in his hand, the pain of battle. He is a distraction, after the destruction of his home. He is keeping thousands of eyes on a last stand, giving time to something else so it can get away, giving time to that thing he must protect.

He lifts the flag, pulling it taut, and finds the black beetle sewn onto the red background. The beetle reminds him of so much and yet so little. The beetle is a symbol, a mark of clan, a mark of belonging. He was a beetle. He is a beetle. He remembers the leader of the beetle clan, the leader of his brothers: the warrior Hanzo. It’s a name that seems to echo. It seems to pulsate with forgotten power. He remembers Hanzo, and he remembers the loss of him. Pain, a new level of it, outright agony. This is a pain fueled by rage, by the thing that shook the sky and rattled the stars.

He remembers nothing after the loss of Hanzo except the pain, and perhaps it is because there _is_ nothing after Hanzo. He served Hanzo, surely, and that is what he lost after that war. He lost Hanzo and his brothers. He was a beetle, he is a beetle. He’s desperate to remember all of it, it’s the most he’s ever itched. It’s as though his skin is trying to shed, there’s something massive he needs to recall but he can’t quite scrape off his shell. He just can’t dig deep enough. As quickly as it comes it leaves, his memory bleeds away and he can’t stop it. All that remains from the holes in his mind is the name: Hanzo. Hanzo the man, Hanzo the samurai. He tears the flag from the pole, it pools in his hands, and he treks back to his home. He keeps Hanzo, and the symbol of him, and he waits. He keeps the flag on the ceiling, so that he looks upon it as he falls asleep. He is not done yet, the world seeming to vibrate with the weight of what’s to come. He feels it in the air. It must be the weight of destiny.

The nightmares come in confusion, steeped in blood. They come seeking vengeance for something fallen, with the sky shattering under inhuman rage. They come with fighting, blade against blade and metal claw, but his opponents are unnaturally fast. He starts with human hands, a beetle on his back, and a sense of urgency. There are women, or they look like women, with chained weapons and burning smoke that sweeps warriors into the air and squeezes them. And they have voices that haunt, timeless and echoing. _Thief_. They call him, closing in like wolves with furious snarls echoing from behind smiling masked faces. They take him into the air, knocking his sword from his hand, and there is agony. _Nothing_. They call him, and he is insignificant in all of his pain. The man in the moon stands before him with foggy eyes and a monster hiding inside of him. His anger is so mighty and it burns so coldly that Beetle feels it in his core.

There is vengeance. A curse. _Insect_. They call him, and he is contorted. He is dropped with his broken mind to what was a battlefield. He was a beetle, he is a beetle. He is left scuttling in the snow searching for pieces of what he has lost. They are buried in the snow, he knows it, but all he finds as he digs are dead men. He raises his head to the sky above and she is there. She is shimmering like starlight, perfect. She is all-consuming. And yet he does not remember her name. She is beautiful like the others from the sky, unearthly, and he is gutted by the sight of her. He truly is not worthy. Yet he loves her terribly, with his entire being, and it is a whole new level of pain when he meets her now milky eyes and her ethereal face contorts in fury. She holds something in her arms, something that should babble and coo but is instead as calm and quiet as the dead night sky. It does not have eyes. He screams. She looks upon him in disgust, and ascends as he cries after her. He is alone, with the moon turning towards him hungrily. The moon has teeth.

And then he starts awake, needing to scuttle outside away from the humanity of his trove. He does not remember details but the rot of fear does not leave his thorax. He does not feel the chill of the night air, how it should cut into his skin, how he should have skin. There is not a single cloud, and the moon sits regally in the sky. It is massive, and seems to glare upon him. It seems to gloat, but looking up at it makes him shiver. In the end he sits atop his stone man as the wind echoes cruel laughing voices. It is as though the sky is mocking him, but he does not remember why. So it does not hurt.

He remains this way for eleven years, scavenging in the snow and digging for things long lost. He picks up more memories. The familiar scent of summer grass, the warm glow of a lit lantern. The scent of ink and the feeling of a book in his hand. He recalls the feeling of rain on skin, the rush of sparring with a comrade. He remembers the sound of a shamisen, gentle plucking at strings and the most beautiful of smiles from its player. He remembers a hand in his own and a woman made of stars. But he never finds her. He searches and wanders every inch of the Far Lands, and then doubles back. But he never gets more about her than an old song and an ache like an old wound. He lives day by day. And then…he finds a boy and and a paper samurai. 

And then everything changes.

**Author's Note:**

> That feel when you need a hug because you cry over the samurai bug all the time. The idea of being turned into a bug and having all of your memories basically tortured out of you and then having to keep going around and winding up in a snow place is basically v sad to me so this happened.
> 
> Just so everyone's aware, the way I saw the big sacrifice of Hanzo and his army was more like The Sisters came to the Beetle Clan Castle as a warning to take Kubo and maybe Sariatu back with them first. Here we may even have the removal of Kubo's eye, but they are pretty outnumbered and dealing with some good fighters so they leave with the promise to return not only with Raiden but his entire army. So in order to have Sariatu and Kubo escape Hanzo and his army decide get as far out into the Far Lands as they can and basically keep all eyes on them so Sariatu can disappear with their son. (It's basically part of the plan from Return of the King, going out swords a swinging to buy time.) (There may have been some super showboating on Hanzo's part to make sure all of the heavens were watching. Am I saying he probably called The Moon King out and made like a million puns? Yes, yes I am.) Of course we know how this ends.
> 
> There might be another chapter of this? I've been thinking about trying parts of the movie from Beetle's perspective, mostly in his flirtationship with Monkey and all the memories that stirs up (plus more father son bonding.) Let me know if that sounds like a good idea? Let me know if any of this was a good idea?


End file.
